


where's the daylight gone

by wariangle



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Flashbacks, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 22:59:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3095738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wariangle/pseuds/wariangle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starling City may be in need of heroes, but mercenaries will help even the scales, if nothing else.</p><p>-</p><p>Missing scene before "Unthinkable" as well as some flashbacks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where's the daylight gone

_She coughs and coughs, but the raw taste of brine burning in her throat remains, and she cannot seem to breathe deep enough to get any air into her lungs. There is land underneath her, firm ground that she can dig her fingers into, to anchor herself. She falls forward again, spewing up another mouthful of salt water, her chest heaving as she struggles to breathe through it._

_From somewhere, she can still hear the soft lapping of waves. With another round of coughs racking her body, she crawls blindly away from it, fearing that her shaking hands will reach water with every weak push forward._

_She collapses again, staring blindly up at a blue sky, blinking against the sharp, sudden light. There is not a single bone in her body that does not ache and deep in her stomach hunger prowls, unrelenting and sickening._

_She stares up at the empty sky and waits for death to finally come and claim her._

  
  


_She struggles against the darkness, against violent hands, against an onslaught of voices trying to get into her mind._

_"Hold her down!" someone shouts and she tries to say protest, to get them off her, but the words die away in her parched throat, gets buried under the cacophony of confusion in her brain._

_"Step back, all of you," another voice says and, thankfully, the hands fall away immediately, only to be replaced by a single one against her forehead. It is cool against her feverish skin, and soothing. "She needs rest. Do not agitate her."_

_The sound of footsteps follows, carrying the voices away._

_"You are safe now," someone says and Sara believes her, desperate to cling to something in this blind nothingness in which she swims. "You are safe."_

_She slips under again, but into something more akin to sleep than death._

  
  


Sterling City is in dire need of heroes. Sara is no hero, but behind the safety of her mask she can pretend that she is. As Canary, she has no trouble navigating the uncanny familiarity of the city in which she was born - behind her mask, her purpose is clear, her identity unquestioned.

As Sara Lance, she is struggling. There are too many bits and pieces left by the girl left for dead back on that island here and she stretches herself thin trying to fit in between them all. The girl she used to be is a ghost kept alive by her family and friends, but still Sara has to accommodate her, attempt to mold herself into the clear-cut space she once left behind.

It is a relief, leaving the shadow of the past behind again as she hurls out of the city and into the night.

She will need to book a flight ticket sooner rather than later, but for now she sticks to the open road, her hometown growing to a speck in the distance behind her, small and vulnerable beneath the doom Slade Wilson and his army are threatening to rain down upon it.

The Canary is a persona created for killing, but tonight she slips behind it in an attempt to do some good, by whatever means necessary.

  
  


_Sara's body heals quickly, but as her bones are re-knitted and her bruises fade, something else is growing inside of her, a thing of darkness and emptiness, demanding to be fed. Only anger seems to help appease it and so it is anger she nourishes herself on, anger she lets fill all the hollow places inside of her where the memories of another life has been twisted out of shape by the horrors of these past few months._

_Nyssa tries to harness her frustration, turning worthless anger into a will of steel. She puts a bow into Sara's restless hands, but Sara cannot get into the motion of it, jerks her fingers away from the string to hard and leaves her arrows going wide._

_The chaos that burns inside of her is better put to use through direct physical work – she wants that burn in every muscle of her body, the violence directly in her hands._

_Finally, admitting defeat, Nyssa gives her a bo staff and though it will be many months before Sara has even the first clue of what to do with it, the weight of it feels right in her hands._

  
  


Nyssa is a merciless killer, with enough blood on her hands to fill a river, a symbol for everything that Sara has tried to leave behind in an attempt to keep hold of her own sanity, and yet what she feels when she sees Nyssa again in the home they used to share is a welcome sense of calm. Nyssa was her anchor in a world of meaninglessness, the one thing that kept her human amidst the death in which she traded.

"I'm here as a client," is what she greets Nyssa with after barging back into her life, her home, after doing everything in her power to get out of it.

Nyssa's eyes betray nothing. Sara slipped beneath that mask once, but that does not mean that Nyssa can no longer hide from her.

"As many as you have," Sara continues. Starling City may be in need of heroes, but mercenaries will help even the scales, if nothing else. "I will pay whatever you ask."

Nyssa shifts her gaze away at that. "Do not insult me," she says, finally. "Consider it a parting gift."

It is meant to hurt, and it does. Nyssa can be viciously cruel when she wants to, her tongue as sharp as the tips of her arrows. Sara just nods.

She knows it won't be as easy as that, though, so when the Demon himself summons her the morning after right before they are set to leave with six assassins in their wake, she is ready. He won't accept money, not after the blow her departure lent to his honor and the reputation of his precious League.

"What do you have to offer me?" he asks as if he is mocking her, his mouth curled into a sinister half-grin, and she takes great satisfaction at the surprise on his face, when she, without a hitch, says, "Me."

She gives him a second to school his features into something a bit more impassive before adding, "I will return to the League, but I will answer to Nyssa and to Nyssa alone."

It is a gamble, she knows, a gamble putting the future of Starling City at risk, but it is one she has to make, for herself. And in the end he accepts with a curt nod. Having the Canary back, even under Nyssa's command rather than his own, is better than having her running free.

  
  


_The bow may be Nyssa's primary strength, but she can hold her own with pretty much any weapon, including her bare hands. During their sparring sessions, Sara has to push herself to the utmost brink just to keep from getting pounded to the floor within the first sixty seconds._

_Sara is all animalistic rage and swift, wild bursts of power as she fights, her sloppy technique making her tire quickly. By contrast, there is a calculated fluidity to every move Nyssa makes, every hit, punch and kick an executed with perfect, graceful control._

_Sara wonders how old Nyssa was when she took up her training. She wonders how long after she made her first kill. She cannot help to envy her and the power that she holds, waiting to spring free in every molecule in her body, the power to decide over life and death. The promise of gaining that kind of power has it's allure, there is no doubt about it, but that is not the only reason why Sara keeps throwing herself at Nyssa, teeth bared and clenched against the pain and exhaustion, giving her all in her attempt to break that calm facade, claw her way beneath that surface for even a second._

_It is a dance of violence, this seduction game between them, and Sara lands herself more than one bruise from the way she keeps finding herself distracted by Nyssa's scent, eyes or lips, the sweat shining on her collarbones and shoulders._

_Therefore, Sara is surprised by Nyssa's reaction when, finally, Nyssa has her pressed down into the carpet, the end of her staff under Sara's chin, and Sara reaches up to flick it away and curl her hand around Nyssa's neck to draw her into a kiss._

_Nyssa's mouth, warm and wanting, opens against her for a second, before she pulls away, her gaze flicking over Sara's face wide-eyed and searching, as if she expected that this would end any other way. But she must find whatever she is looking for, because she kisses Sara again. The way she tugs her lower lip into her mouth and slides her tongue inside of Sara's is unexpectedly soft, even as the press of her body against Sara betrays the machinery of power beneath her skin._

_For a brief second, Sara fears that she has accidentally promised Nyssa a lot more than she was meant to do, or is able to give, but that thought slips away too easy to the salt-sharp taste of Nyssa's sweat upon her tongue, the feel of her lips against her throat._

  
  


Starling City is still standing. From where Sara is standing on the deck of the ship taking her back to the one place she swore she would never return to alive, it is again but a speck of light upon the horizon, but it is still standing.

The water - oily black in reflected lights from the boat and the city - foam and lap against the sides of the boat as it moves forward, the thrumming of the engines a low, almost distant, sound in the still night air. The wind that caresses her face is cool and soft and for the first time in many, many years she feels oddly at peace.

She has been living a half-life for so long, bits and pieces of herself hidden away, kept out of the light, and she is so very tired of it. She is sick of shadows.

That her feet take her to Nyssa's cabin without conscious thought is easy to explain away - her own cabin is right across from Nyssa's, and it's so simple to pretend while she's standing there, weighing her decision, that she is about to open up her own door and fall to her own bed.

She knows that there will take much work and even greater amounts of trust to bridge the distance between them, if it is possible at all. She knows that no matter how much Nyssa loves her, betrayals are not something she forgives easily – if ever.

Even so, she pushes the door open and steps inside.

Her feet scarcely make a sound on the floor, but still Nyssa stirs, lifting her head from the pillow, adorably bleary-eyed but no less alert for it.

Sara undresses slowly and quietly with Nyssa's eyes intent on her, dropping her hands to her sides when she's down to her underwear, leaving the choice up to Nyssa. A gesture of trust.

A second passes before Nyssa moves over, making room for Sara to slip beneath the sheets and up against the alluring warmth of Nyssa's body. Nyssa turns her face away when Sara tries to kiss her, though, catching her lips on her cheek instead.

"This is not a thank you," Sara says quietly, because it isn't and Nyssa needs to know that. "It never was."

Nyssa kisses her then, long and sweet. Sara's fingers tangle in her hair, dig into the meat of her thigh as she moves closer, into her arms.

As they fuck, Nyssa's hands rest heavy on Sara's wrists, weighing her down into the mattress as if she is afraid Sara will disappear into thin air unless she anchors her with her grip, her body.

Sara is not ready to give voice to any promises, so she kisses them into Nyssa's skin instead, traces them across her ribs and back and the insides of her thighs.

Afterward, with the light already creeping up on the horizon, they fall asleep in an impossible tangle of sweaty limbs and damp sheets, on their way back home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr](http://wariangle.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
